It’s not Monday but it’s certainly Mayu Monday for me! This is my only artwork for March so I’ll see you all again in April or soon after! (⌒▽⌒ゞ
Pantyhose: I actually went back then forth trying to decide between bare legs and pantyhose but I ultimately decided pantyhose was the way to go. The pantyhose are meant to match the corset except no leather and comfort of course. It has lace details and a leather belt on her left leg. The lace stops around her ankles.
Hair: to stay within steampunk territory, I decided to make her hair fluffy, swirly, and lots of curl heart shapes. I don’t like to use one range of colors so I made the choice to go with my heart and make it extra colorful! (Although Mayu’s hair always proves to be a challenge (∩︵∩)
Makeup: I tried to make her extra girly- sorta 40s makeup vibe. So red lipstick and pink blush. I also tried to make her details more rounded to give a softer appearance :D
Shoes: it was my try of Mary Jane’s inspired shoes so please remember they are NOT accurate. She has small legs warmers over the shoes and tied off with pink bows, a short heel, and golden beads to go around the rim.
Gloves: blacks gloves with the tips of her thumb, middle, and ring fingers revealed, and well as leather and golden beads to go around and lace at the bottoms.
Dress: sheesh I’ll try to explain as well and possible… the dress comes with a color, ruffles, folds, and lots of lace for the underskirt. She has two belts below the sleeves to emphasize the ruffles. The dress also comes with a front tying corset that I took extra care to seem functional. The corset comes with lace, leather, and POCKETS! Because every girly in a dress needs pockets (she was originally gonna have a gun in her beta design shhh). The pockets are attached to the leather part of the corset in the back, and is also joined with golden beads? Buttons? Idk those things. She also has three rows of the golden beads on her skirt!
Hat: Her top hat is decorated in clocks, chains, and gears for a some steampunk effect, as well as a pink bow and pink bunny ears. Around the hat is black lace and under the hat is pink lace for some pop!
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edgeworth family & summer 🍉
i needed to go through an old file in my 2021 folder, and i stumbled upon this drawing. 2021 was an incredibly arduous year & resulted in a lot of art block, so i have a lot of unfinished drawings from then. the fact that i finished/drew anything at all is a feat honestly (and you guys should be proud too if you drew anything at all during the early months of the pandemic...!)
i quite like the look of jeluto's csp brush here to achieve a blocky effect...
i dont know what is UP with the bleed border here, did i plan to print this in a book? especially with how close greg's face is to the gutter??? *avgn voice* what was i thinking
the one time i ACTUALLY tried a bg and it backfired on me bc i never finished. im sorry to my 1st year layout teacher who gave me a 1 on 1 personal pep talk *dexter voice* i have failed you 😭😭 i think this drawing had a lot of potential, i just wouldn't go back to it bc it's 3 years old now. backgrounds are tough because i never really know how to approach them. do i line it? do i keep it a sketch and just paint over/under the sketch layer? do i lineless it?
i guess it depends. much to think about... i definitely want to challenge myself whenever i can, but not overwhelm myself with the need to "improve". gotta remember that art should be fun ♥.
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the minds of a lab at three different points (LONG rambling under the cut)
I am constantly in awe of the analyses people put out about Arknights on this website. I feel like my own interpretations are somewhat lacking as a result, but I was confident enough to post this, at least. I've had this idea for a long time now, I think since Lone Trail released, but I've only been able to make the time for it now.
Rhine Lab has so many fucked up elements and people involved in it that it's actually impressive. They were really gunning for "most unethical scientific consortium" reward. Really, though, it's just the result of Kristen gunning for her parents' wishes. All of the directors want something and all of those somethings are different.
Things I want to mention or just feel proud of (allowing myself this because of how long this took):
-I was originally planning on crossing out Saria's surname to reflect that we still don't know what it is in canon, but I don't know why whoever has this poster would do that, so I just kept it in. Hermon refers to Mount Hermon, which Saria's name apparently derives from. Technically, her name here is the same thing twice. Oh well.
-I don't know who this poster belongs to. It's just in some Rhine Lab tech's personal desk, I guess? Doesn't explain the doodles, though. Maybe they were bored and feeling spiteful about the potential job insecurity of your boss being comatose in space.
-I realized only while making this post that I made Saria's, Muelsyse's, and Jara's doodles reference Kristen, yet Kristen's only references herself and her parents. Completely unintentional, but appropriate nonetheless.
-I am so happy with how the poster came out. It makes up for how hard I had to fight Canva for it to come out like that. Here it is in full if you want to look at it closely for whatever reason. (writing an actual description for this thing was fun!)
-Andenate doesn't actually have a face under the sticky note. That's why he's still Mike Wazowski'd in the poster png. I didn't feel like drawing one since it wouldn't be shown in the finished pieces anyway. His jacket is just the same as Magallan's.
-Ifrit's picture board was a literal last-minute addition. It's why the images are sketches rather than being in the lineless style of the poster. It feels fitting, though, so I'm keeping it that way. Seeing Ifrit all grown up and doing so well in Lone Trail was wonderful. There's something in her being happy and healthy and also surrounded by not just her loved ones and friends from Rhine Lab, but also people outside of it. She's cultivated her life to be as fulfilling as she wants it to be, and while there is still room to grow, she has plenty of support and insight from others for it to do so. I may be misrepresenting her a bit (the sleepiness doesn't help), but man. I love Ifrit. She's so cool.
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2023.
i hope any of you reading this will forgive the essay. i started posting to this art blog ten years ago in 2013 when i was just at the very end of high school, uploading short animations i'd made for one of my final projects, preparing myself for art school where i was gearing up to become an illustration/animation student.
i went into my art foundation course in 2014, still thinking i was going to be going into storybook illustration or with faint hopes of becoming like a concept artist for game/animation, although even then i'd started thinking about patterns...
and then in 2015 i did go into my BA, going in for that illustration with animation degree that... usually when i talk about it in real life, i say didn't really feel like the best place for me. if i think back, the best things i got out of it were two of my best friends, one of whom is now my partner. looking back on my BA era, there's some bits of sketchbook stuff...
and while i was at university my main fandoms were thunderbirds are go and x-men for a bit... these are from the end of 2015 into the beginning of 2016...
then for a little while i was doing this still sort of pastel-ish lineless situation:
and i alternated between that and this thin fineliner type work (pretty sure all of the linearted pieces were done on paper and scanned, and all the lineless were graphics-tablet-only) - it was in this style that i started to offer commissions for the first time too.
and i also had fineliner-lined work in sketchbooks that i coloured with marker and posca pens, the colours of which were generally a bit more intense just based on not being able to slide the hue/saturation around on paper:
also 2016 was when i discovered the spongebob musical just after it's trial run in chicago (which ended in july of 2016) and i started making fanart at that point... which would have the biggest effect on the way i drew (and i did end up handing in a piece of spongebob musical fanart as one of my art school homeworks lmao)
from summer 2016 until early 2017 things were still quite soft and pastelly in my digital art, colour-wise:
and then suddenly everything got whacked up to 100% on saturation. also i was using the binary tool to give everything really thin pixel lineart for some reason.
then i went on vacation in summer 2017 and didn't draw for maybe a month? just short of? and when i came back i decided to change everything up again... giving characters blobbier, more ugly-cute faces with large squinting eyes and big nostrils and i was worrying a lot less about making anything look smooth, lineart-wise. i turned off the pen stabiliser in SAI and let it wiggle.
then... the spongebob musical opened on broadway in late 2017, i went to see it live in person for the first time... and my whole brain was ENTIRELY consumed by my love of it. i was putting that david zinn inspired pattern explosion into everything, even if it wasn't sbm fanart.
as we go into 2018, i started colouring my lineart. my biggest interest was still broadway musicals (with spongebob at the top of the list)
i think summer 2017 - early 2018 is probably my favourite art era, i was at my most bright and colourful and exciting... although i know in my actual real life i was struggling a lot with my home situation and i had been for some time. art was definitely my escapism back then, and i think a lot of the time i drew really bright, joyful stuff to try and inject that feeling into myself.
as for my university work, i was putting my focus into 3D paper-mache puppets:
and i was also starting to do more repeat patterns, mostly inspired by things around me. i'd learned how to make patterns actually tile and repeat in 2017, so made a few during my time at uni just to accompany some of my projects, but never as the focus of them. one of my university tutors told me that maybe i should put more focus on doing surface pattern, and maybe applying it to textiles, but i said i wasn't interested.
i graduated from my BA in the summer of 2018, and immediately began volunteering at the whitworth art gallery doing anything i could - stewarding, helping with arts and crafts, dancing with families...
in 2019 i was still very colourful... i was trying out more chunky colouring on characters skintones that i think was def inspired by tumblr artist jadenvargen:
but the blobbyness and ugly-cute style of drawing faces was gone by here, and i think... the way i drew characters probably had better *anatomy*, proportions were maybe a bit more realistic...
in 2020 i started adding the black shading to under the chins and some other places on characters' bodies because i started watching the anime my hero academia with my brother, lmao (and i was starting to pastelise colours a bit again, these are the most pastel-ish examples) my lineart has really smoothed back out too, though i never turned my pen stabiliser back on in SAI. i think my hand just adjusted. probably seems a bit insane to miss that, but i do.
by the end of 2020, the almost-year of lockdown over cobid had... made me a bit insane, i think, and i moved out of my mother's house and into a flat with a friend from university.
in 2021 i think things were much the same... i think from this point on is where things have sort of settled. i don't want to say stagnated, but i do think things have been very... like this for a while.
2022 - got the most exciting examples out...
also i was very into these little frames in 2022.
and then on to 2023! in 2022, i did begin trying to shift gears a bit -- hoping to put more energy into sewing and making products (like my tutor has suggested back in uni, even though i'd really resisted the idea.) i sold at a few in-person markets during winter of 2022, but got disheartened by the amount of money i had to sink in up front to sign up for a spot...
which has made me VERY grateful for the people who have supported me via online sales. it has really helped me stay afloat in 2023 - AND it has felt more wonderful than i can describe that there have been people interested in my work... especially when a lot of it has been my original designs, rather than the fanart that i expect a lot of people initially followed me for.
i've also... in the past 2 years... branched out a bit more when it comes to 'being an artist' - and have had the opportunity to deliver arts & crafts workshops with local refugee & asylum seeker support charity, afrocats. it's taken me to their home base in a church to hotels across the city where asylum seekers were temporarily placed while waiting on their new homes, and of course to my beloved whitworth art gallery, where we welcomed visitors from all backgrounds: from the typical white middle class visitors the gallery usually expects, to all the refugee visitors coming into the space for the first time.
and through my volunteering at the whitworth, i showed up so often they decided they might as well pay me. so i've also become a facilitator of... creative play sessions, my favourites of which have been outdoors. monthly, year-round, we have 'outdoor art club', where i get to paint with mud and make potions from leaves with kids & families - here you can see me tell you a little bit about it in this video below with 'crempog' a puppet character that makes videos about activities for kids and families around manchester (my bit starts at 01:10 although i am in the intro and thumbnail haha)
and then of course the summer 'PLAYTIME' activities we've had the past two years: scrap studio in 2022, and play market in 2023. it's the best freelance gig ever -- just to hang out and encourage families to be creative and have fun.
in working more in these new avenues... outside of being - as i've called myself for a long time - "an internet artist"... i've found myself more interested in this sort of thing. in being a "real world artist" too. in doing surface pattern design, and being a workshop facilitator, i find myself wanting to put more energy into these sorts of projects.
in 2023 i've also dabbled a little bit more in youtube videos! i have had a channel for a while and have made videos in previous years, but 2023 has been the year i've done the most in. admittedly most of them haven't been about my art, and more just like... random things that interest me (the spongebob musical in particular) but i've really been enjoying video editing. that's kind of an art form too, so i'm including it here!
moving forward, want to keep putting even more of my energy into other things. my shop, with a bigger range of products to offer. workshops in real life, where i can make a difference.
as for my art blog... i feel like i've done the least drawing in many years in 2023, and... well, things have been weird and complicated for a bit in my real life. i hope to draw for fun a bit more again very soon, and to return to doing things in more of a wild and crazy way, to be more creative and exciting with the way i draw things. still, here's some of my favourites from 2023:
thank you so much to everyone who has borne witness to my art journey this past decade!!! i hope you will stick with me, who knows, maybe for another 10 years if tumblr holds out. especially a big thank you to everyone who has ever commissioned me, or bought anything from my store, you literally keep me able to make art at all and i cannot, cannot, cannot overstate how much it means to me.
i'm moving homes soon, possibly into very cramped temporary conditions for a little while before HOPEFULLY starting my real life with my partner. if i can take one more moment to plug my work, then [here is a link to my online shop] and [here is my ko-fi page too.]
cheers, cheers, cheers!
- LOREN 🌈🍍🎉
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